This blog post title is brought to you by the song If I Were a Man by Andrea Menard. I like this song because I sometimes think that if I were a man, I would like to meet someone like me also. If I were a man, I would also read about how India is among the top five worst places for women and be like hahaha bitches and I'd also be superglad that I’m a man. Anyway, this song is on the Queer as Folk series soundtrack. I like a lot of songs from that show. I also like Gale Harold from that show.

And now, because this is a blog that likes to get whiny about inauthenticity, privilege and white people, this is where we stop talking about Gale Harold and Surya and start talking about how the Gay Girl in Damascus is not even gay, not even a girl and not even in Damascus. Even though this well-intentioned little oopsie has made things worse for the real LGBTQ bloggers in Syria, Mr. MacMasters is real sorry yougaiz. And I think it's way clear from his awesome nonapology that he just HAD to pretend to be a gay girl in Damascus because no one listens to straight, white dudes who are possibly the most disenfranchised, oppressed and voiceless people in the world. They can’t even get on those awesomebook lists people keep putting out because those lists are like OVERFLOWING with colored women of exotic sexual orientations. It’s like a big queer uterus festival. POOR STRAIGHT WHITE DUDES!!111 Who will listen to their words? Who will read their books? Because there was supposed to be a book, like a memoir typething which you can read all about at Minal Hajratwala’s blog. And here is an excerpt from said fictionmemoirtypething.

-Now, Hajj Musa tried to take Nashqua to his bed for she enraptured him. She refused him, saying that, though she was a servant now, she had been born free in her own land and was of an ancient noble lineage; if he would have her, he would need first to ask for her hand and do all things properly. She was no slave and would be no man’s doxy.-

Ok. Let us now move on to other nondoxy things because that little excerpt made me feel somewhat also. SoAnywaiz, the peepal at Blaft updated their blog. This is something they don’t usually do and when they do, it’s sometimes about invertebrates or slogans people write on children’s clothing like hai! American Express CutieSweetie. This time, Blaft posted about this.

*sniff* Sorrygaiz. I read this and I just think of Mrs. Mortimer and the tears flow like Mother Ganga down my third world Indian face. Anywaiz, this rhyme is like the most Indian thing evar yougaiz. Seriously. You go to some Indian house in India filled with Indian children and their Indian parents say ‘RHYMES SOLLU!!’ and these Indian children open their Indian mouths and talk about having blue eyes and being VERYfair. Then you turn to the Indian parents and say what the fuck yougaiz? And the Indian parents smile fullpridetypes and shrug and click their teeth and say ‘oh it’s just a rhyme!’ and they generally beam at you like they just diarrheaed thousand rupee notes all over the floor.

Is it weird that Indian children in 2011 are still reciting nursery rhymes that were all the rage in England in the 18th century? Of course not! Watte crapnonsense you are talking! We are Indians! We ADORE 18th century English things, especially if they are racist. If at any moment you feel uneasy about this fuckwitted piece of poesy, kindly restore your Indianess and sense of balance by remembering the following-

One should never get emotional about simple nurseryrhyme when in India so many poor people are dying and women are wearing pants and doing slutwalks, thus eroding our Indian culture and causing foreign media to write negatively about us, saying we are the fourth worst country in the world for women when we are A-1 country jaihind!111

It’s not like nursery rhymes are made of words. And even if they were, it’s not like these words have any meaning. And even if they do, it’s not like a little kid is going to understand anything anyway because little kids are stupid. (I have found that this is often followed by 'Don’t you dare say the word ‘stupid’ around my kids or I will kill your face.')

It is very important for our teaching methods and literature to remain rooted in the 18th century because that was just a really great time to be alive and it is the only way for our country to grow and prosper in 2011. Also, as I said earlier, kids are stupid.

You know what’s neat tho? One of the excerpts from the aforementioned NonGay NonGirl’s TotallyNotLivingInDamascus’ memoirbooktypething is

‘The whole time, I was noticing how mature and pretty she was; long, wavy golden hair tied up in a bun, bright blue eyes, an almost pinkish face and a woman’s body, just the way that I wished that I looked.’

It’s the teacher’s pet yougaiz! She grew up into hot blondehairedblueeyed woman and- actually, you know what? I’m sorry. Because these two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other and I just went and connected them in such an irresponsible way and I’m just so sorry yougaiz. As a white dude from Finland, I shouldn’t even be writing about this stuff. So let us leave you with

Sunday, June 5, 2011

ohai yougaiz!11 Unfortunately I have come back in the return. The good news is that I will only be blogging every other week from now on. So instead of not really having anything to say on a weekly basis, I will not really have anything to say every other week. Anyway, this blog post title is brought to you by the song MacArthur Park. I think it is neat because it reminds me of the strange places that metaphors have the potential to go and even though we listen to it and lol at it and use it as a blog post title, a part of us, deep down inside is nodding very sagely and going ‘I know EXACTLY what this is saying’. And now I shall now use this opportunity to catch up on correspondence. Because that’s always fun to do.

I listened to this only because I thought it would shed some light on what the Telugu version was saying. But something tells me that the Telugu version isn’t really about ‘aunties dancing with their hands’. Or something. That’s probably not what this version is saying either because my Malayalam skills are worse than my Tamil skills and I fully admit that I just recognized the words ‘hands’ and ‘auntiemaarey’ and made the connection myself and I probably shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry yougaiz. Anywaiz, is this in any way connected to the song ‘These Are The Daves I Know I Know’, specifically the line about how they all have the same hands but they come from different moms? Please answer me yes or no, although I have a feeling the answer is no.

Dear Kanimozhi,

I am not writing to you to talk about how you’re in jail because maybe you already know you are in jail and so I don't need to tell you that. I am mainly writing to tell you that when I was in school, there was a girl who was also called Kanimozhi and we all called her FruitLanguage because that was a thing for us back in the day, to translate Tamil names into English. Also back in the day, we sang all our memoriter poems to the tune of certain cinemasongs for easy memoriterization. Like Fear No More The Heat of the Sun was sung to the tune of Maasi Maasam Aalana Ponnu. And for the line ‘aasai noorachu ponga’, we sang ‘fear no more the lightning flash!’ and we sang it with so much feeling, like you could actually hear that exclamation mark and the lightning flash yougaiz. Fear no more the lightning flash! Anyway. Maybe this is not a good enough reason to write to you, especially when you are in jail and stuff like that.

Dear Racism,

Where would this blog be without you? I mean seriously, if we couldn’t make fun of white people and jump up and down and up and down about racism, what purpose would this blog have? It would have no purpose AT ALL. So anyway, I saw this video, right? And it had this old woman speaking about how brown people aka Indian people smell like shit because of the curry and they don’t bathe. Which is not that interesting really. Said old woman has been put on YouTube display by honorable grandson Peter Chau aka pyrobooby and then himself and people who said they were “brown” and people who said they were “not brown” all went to great lengths to assure everyone that this wasn’t racist it was just funny and we should all learn to see the funny and Russell Peters got dragged into the conversation somehow. Which is also not that interesting. I was just wondering why everyone tends to say the same stuff about everyone else. I mean, it doesn’t really matter who is talking about who, it always seems to follow the same pattern, you just fill in the blanks accordingly.

1. I am not racist. But I know ________ people because I have met/worked with/sat behind/seen them. So I know what I’m talking about because it is actually the truth and my opinion which means it is not racist. 2. __________ people smell bad. Specifically, they smell like shit. This is the truth because I have smelled them because I have met/worked with/sat behind/seen them. Also I like smelling people. Ok maybe peeps don't say that last part.

3. ___________ people smell bad because they eat __________ which is some crazyshit that __________ people eat because they are ______________. I know this because I have met/worked with/sat behind/seen them.

4. _____________ people also smell bad because they do not bathe. This is also because they are __________ people and it’s not part of their culture to bathe like we do. I know this because I have met/worked with/sat behind/seen them.

I would like to know what is this connection between racism, a lack of personal hygiene and a tendency to reek of fecal matter which is also connected to the partaking of native foodstuffs? Why don’t people say, oh THEM? THEY run with scissors. Or THEY eat baby unicorns. Why is it that THEY are just not bathing enough and they eat WEIRD things and all of this makes them smell like poopoo? Why is it that these conversations ultimately reduce grown ups to 4 years olds? Please answer me yes or no to all this question.

Dear ActorAbbas,

I just want to say that I recently saw you in that Harpic ad and you were like very enthutypes and yay cleantoiletrevolution and all and I have to admit that for maybe half a half a second, I thought of how much better this world would be if we all had clean toilets. But I still could not help thinking how back in the then you were the haut guy in Kadhal Desam and now you’re the guy in the Harpic ad. Eppadi Iruntha Nee. Ippadi Ayitte.

Dear VS Naipaul,

Have you noticed how dissing you has become like making Rebecca Black parodies but not really also? You are like the Rebecca Black and the Charlie Sheen and the Donald Trump and the Baba Ramdev of…something. Anywaizalso, we had to read yours onenumber ‘Middle Passage’ when I was in college and I liked it. So I just wanted to tell you that I think what you say makes total sense. Because we keep being bombarded by all these lists of the most awesome books ever. And these lists will sometimes have one female author on there but this is often because they have an ambiguous first name and that possibly confuses people. Usually the lists are all about dudes. And then peeps see this and are like ‘oh mai cheezuz, that is shawking! Good writing has no gender! But this list has no leddies on it! oh mai cheezuz, that is shawking! Good writing has no gender! But this list has no leddies on it! oh mai cheezuz, that is shawking!’ Which is kind of like Dory in Finding Nemo but not as funny and without the fish and stuff. You however, are not doing any of that. Because you’ve said, and I quote "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by awoman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." On the one hand, you are very much like the old woman in aforementioned letter. But on a completely different hand, you’re just telling it like it is, bro- when it comes to the bestfictionevarevar,

stolen from somwhere on jezebel.com

You just bein’ real, girlfriend! And I for one have resPECK for that. resPECK. And I say this is a fellow brodude who is also white and from Finland. Which I’m sure you can tell just by reading this. I mean the bro part. I don’t think you can tell my color by reading this because that would make you racist.

I am a white dude from Finland currently failing at being an IWiE and trying not to be fail because one of the prerequisites of being an IWiE is to always be a winner. One of the things I am doing in an effort not to be fail is to totally not talk about certain allegations against a certain someone whose name kinda rhymes with Flava Flavidar but not really. I just wanted to say that I lold so much at the fact that you called him Hot Lips Flavidar in aforementioned article. Please don’t tell anyone I said that though because I think I might already be in trouble for calling Naipaul ‘girlfriend’ in some previous correspondence.

Dear D. Maran,

Can I have one of your phone lines? I mean you have over 300 of them, no? In your house. I want to assure you that this phone line would be used for a good cause only, namely my Fund For The Empowerment of Third World People With Less Than 300 Phone Lines in Their OneNumber House. I feel this is a very important fund because so many people in this country, rich and poor, do not have over 300 phone lines in their homes. It is a problem that affects us all. My fund will aim to proactively engage with this issue head on, working at a grassroots level to organically solutionize, ideate, accentuate and propitiate the necessary paradigms and paroxysms to create a solid foundation today for a better tomorrow than we had yesterday in the future. It is my dream that one day, every house in this country will have over 300 motherfucking phone lines. If you don’t feel like donating a phoneline for that fund, perhaps you would consider donating one to another fund I have called the Please Answer Me Yes or No Fund For Better Understandingment Among The Common Peoples. Because one of the key features of better understandingment among the common peoples is to have over 300 phone lines in da house, bro!

Actually, can I have two phones? Or 12? Or 30 maybe?

And before I leave you all, I want to congratulate my writingfraand Davin Malasarn who has a collection of short fiction out which is buyable here. I am awfully fond of Davin because he is neat and also he writes neat stories like this one.

And now, musics-

If there is anyone out there who has been desperatelyseeking the song ‘Onnam Padi Yeduthu’ by Vijayalakshmi Navaneethakrishnan, it’s here yougaiz!111

And I suddenly remembered this song from Pandi Nattu Thangam, which is nice to hear in a bus for some reason.

About Me

Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications. She also has an email id and it goes like kuzhali (dot) ehm (at) gmail (dot) com